


Kansas is gone (he always had a heart)

by Hecate



Category: Terminator (Movies), Terminator Salvation (2009)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 22:41:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/pseuds/Hecate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"But I'm real," Marcus tells his imagination. "And I got a heart."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kansas is gone (he always had a heart)

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine, no money made.

Later, they will tell him that Kate took one look at his heart and shook her head.

"Too damaged," she told them, Marcus' heart a wreck kept beating by the metal around it. She took another look and sent the others out, telling them what she needed and ignoring their protests.

She kept Marcus ripped open at Connor's side; kept Barnes, a cutting torch and scalpels nearby, telling him what she needed. Looking at Marcus' chest, thinking of everything she ever learnt about pace makers, she built a miracle out of Terminator trash and what was left of John Connor's heart.

Later, they will tell him that they both stayed under for days.

Now he's awake and Connor still isn't, his too-human body still too weak, and Marcus watches Kate and he watches Connor and he prays to a God he doesn't believe in.

"Please," he whispers, not sure why he asks for the life of this man, why he risked so much to save it. "Please."

***

Three days later, Connor wakes.

Marcus isn't there, has been moved out of the room a day ago, has been back on his feet ever since. The others watch him, guards not allies, and if it wasn't for Kate's intervention things would have ended badly.

Kyle stays close to him, Star almost always at his side, Blair the only one of the Resistance that can stand coming near him. The only one not twitching, reaching for a sidearm, whenever he moves. He thanks her for it, and Kyle punches his shoulder, reminds him that he's Resistance now, too.

Blair laughs.

Then, Connor wakes and the base wakes with him, tension turning into restless relief.

But Connor isn't alright. Marcus can see it in the way Kate moves when she leaves the room to get something for her husband, to talk with Barnes. Connor isn't alright because there's metal in his chest now.

A room away, Marcus can hear Connor raging, cursing the steel that keeps his heart beating.

 _Welcome to the club, buddy_ , Marcus thinks and carries Star away from the noise.

***

His skin grows each time he actually sleeps, and he imagines little robots at work, crawling through his cells, pulling and stretching and knotting things back together.

He can't sleep for days then, goes to Kate because he almost trusts her and he knows she won't hesitate to give the killing order should he be dangerous.

"It's okay," she tells him, her eyes on her hands, cleaning medical instruments. "Healing doesn't make you evil."

Still, he knows she watches him, waiting for him to go crazy, to start killing them all.

Most of them do the same.

***

Connor is back on his feet, just like that, giving orders and going back to war.

Marcus imagines he can hear Skynet hiss and growl, a dog's anger over a stolen bone, and he smiles every time Connor passes him in the tunnels, every time he sees the sharp features of the leader of humanity.

Alive and kicking, his voice on the radio sending the message into the wastelands that make up their homes now.

Somewhere, Marcus knows, people are smiling just like him.

"Take that," he whispers to his maker. "I didn't kill him. I'll never kill him."

Behind the horizon, the beast whimpers.

***

His first mission was supposed to be an easy one, so things obviously went straight to hell. The world turned to dust and fire around him and Kyle, and he throws himself on the boy, his body a greater shield than anything humanity could produce.

The explosion rocks their bodies, and the buildings around them shatter, burning debris hitting him like little bombs. Beneath him, Kyle curses. And lives. 

When he gets up, his left arm is a mess. Skin torn off, metal shining through, and something in there is broken. Kyle stares at him, at his useless arm as Marcus attempts to move it, and curses again. "We need to get back."

Marcus nods and follows him through the forest of shuddering walls and bent metal. His arm is broken and he feels human.

***

"Get Connor," Barnes says when they return, his eyes hard as he considers the metal of Marcus' arm.

Connor is there moments later, taking one look at Marcus, at Kyle, his face grim. 

"Come with me," he says, and Marcus follows like a well-trained puppy, Kyle at his heels. Connor leads them to his own room, and Marcus feels Kyle's awe as he takes in the trash and property of humanity's great leader. A bare room, miserable and grey like the whole world, but taken care of. There's something private about it, an animal's cave, and he feels like an invader. Connor doesn't seem to mind them being there, just motions Marcus to a chair and table.

He sits down and watches as Connor gets out tools, sturdy and sharp, and tension rolls through his gut in waves. "What..." he starts, but stops when Connor puts a T-700 arm on the table. "Oh." Slowly, he pushes his arm onto the table, side by side with its dead twin, and he hears Kyle gasp.

Connor ignores Kyle, his eyes on the metal before him, comparing, and reaches out for a tool. "This might take a while."

***

When Marcus wakes, the skin on his arm has returned in patches, pink strewn over metal, and he moves his arm carefully.

It works again and he remembers Connor's smile, his triumph, and the huge grin spreading over Kyle's face.

Tools and magical skin, and on some yellow brick road a tin man is laughing. "But I'm real," Marcus tells his imagination. "And I got a heart."

***

He doesn't need to eat. Doesn't want to, most days; the desire for food is gone, and he isn't even sure if he could still taste it. Kyle tells him he should be grateful for it because there isn't much to eat anyway.

Marcus nods and misses the hunger, the sound of his growling stomach. Utterly human, all of it. Disconnected from him now, memories of another life, and he _wants_...

He can't afford this weakness, tries to smile through hurried meals, tries to make his lost hunger look like the advantage Kyle thinks it is instead of another scarlet letter. There are remarks, jokes and thinly veiled insults, and he lets Kyle do the glaring and keeps himself quiet.

Days after their first mission, Connor eats with them, talking with Blair over a new plan and mocking Kyle. Somewhere between all this, Connor looks at him, cocks his head and pushes food in his direction.

Marcus almost objects, but it feels like a test, like a dare, and he reaches for the food without comment.

It tastes horrible, and Marcus grins after every bite.

***

Connor is with them during their second mission, his presence making Kyle nervous and putting Marcus on edge. He feels responsible for him and knows he shouldn't. Connor can take care of himself, and saving him once was not a promise, not an oath of allegiance.

Yet, Marcus watches him, trails his steps until they rest. Night has come upon them and with it the hunters are out, forcing them to take shelter deep in some ruins. Kyle and Connor shiver in the cold, and Marcus remembers how it feels, can almost feel it in the darkness of grime and rubble. It's the idea of a winter's day running over his skin, a feeling that's so human that it isn't. He's freezing but it feels as if someone else is shivering.

Marcus shrugs it off, distracts himself by watching Connor and Kyle huddling against the wall. Fragile and strong and human. Connor referred to Kyle as his father. He remembers that now they're sitting side by side, almost forgot about it over finding out he's not human anymore and everything that followed. 

Connor is crazy but he probably deserves to be.

Kyle is still nervous about Connor, still worships him, and Marcus throws sand at him because Kyle stares and Marcus isn't sure how Connor will react to that. Kyle kicks him hard and Marcus throws more. "That hurts."

"Yeah, right."

At Kyle's side, Connor snorts.

***

Blair kisses him before she goes on a mission, kisses him when she returns. Telling the world that she's alive, screaming into Skynet's face with every caress. She lives. Marcus lives.

Sometimes, it's almost easy to believe in that.

***

Pain has become puzzling, its absence marking Marcus' days. Some days, something hits him, something quite like pain but not the real thing. A memory, a programming, his brain winning over the metal beneath his skin. Phantom pain that makes him real again, and he holds on to every spark of it.

The Resistance uses him like a tool, a shield to hide behind when the enemy opens fire. He takes the bullets and the men shoot back, alive. Most of them never thank him for it; most of them still don't trust him. He takes their distance like he takes the bullets, his face hard while his screams echo on the inside.

Connor takes care of him when he returns broken, bends over Marcus' arms or legs and tries to make sense of Marcus' body. He tells Marcus stories then, about Judgement Day and the days that followed, about his own voice on the radio.

"I was the first person they heard," Connor says, and Marcus starts to understand the legend.

***

Sometimes, he catches Connor watching him.

***

"Collecting pet Terminators now, Connor?" someone says behind them, and they turn to the sound.

"Griffith." Connor nods a greeting and steps in front of Marcus, his hand on his hip, close to his sidearm. "You heard about Marcus."

"I heard about a Terminator. Didn't know they had names now."

Marcus sees Connor straightening at that, sees how something inside of him turns to steel. He almost warns the newcomer but doesn't, just steps at Connor's side.

"Didn't know they played bodyguards either," Griffith continues, and Marcus almost laughs. He isn't guarding Connor. He's holding him back.

***

Griffith stays for far too long, and Marcus watches as Connor turns harder with every day that passes.

"He's worried about you," Blair tells him. "Worried he can't protect you from Griffith, from his own men. It would be hard for them to kill you, but not impossible. And Barnes... He hates you because you make the others doubt Connor."

He wants to tell her that Connor doesn't need to protect him, but she knows that. Connor knows that. But without Connor, he couldn't stay. Not with the Resistance, not with any humans, because people would always _know_.

"Some people don't like Connor," Blair continues. "He's not military, you know. He has ... different training. From his mother. No one really knows why, some people think she was just a gun lover or maybe a terrorist, but no one really knows. Connor won't tell. And he knows things. Things he shouldn't know about Skynet, about what it's planning. Some say he belongs to the machines."

Marcus laughs at that. Connor, it seems, was born to destroy Skynet. His mission, his destiny, and it is clear to see in everything he does.

"And Kate... She doesn't make things easier, you know. Her father was military. The kind of military that made Skynet."

Something he didn't know, something new. He's still not one of them, still doesn't know the whole story, and most of the time he doesn't know what to ask and what to guess.

"They don't hate Kate," he finally says, and Blair laughs.

"Most of the time."

***

"Pet Terminator", Griffith calls him before he leaves, and Marcus bites his lips and swallows his response. It doesn't matter because Griffith is gone and Connor starts to be himself again.

It doesn't matter even though the insult stays, a whisper among the Resistance, another weight to bear. Kyle rages against them when he hears them, but Marcus tells him not to, smiles and pulls him along.

"It's better when they think I'm just a pet," he says later. "Better a pet than a monster."

***

He takes a shot to the face during a mission and tumbles to the ground. Curses and gets up again, shooting and pulling another fighter behind him. Hours later, they are back at the camp and people are staring at him.

"You're freaking people out again," Connor says, and hands him a pair of sunglasses.

***

It takes days for his skin and eyes to heal, and he's glad for the lack of mirrors. He doesn't want to see himself right now, wants to forget this particular damage.

Kyle grins when he sees him, mocks the sunglasses, and Blair reaches out to touch his skin. Connor avoids him, and it takes Marcus a while to realizes that he misses him.

After he has healed, he finds Connor and hands him the glasses. "Thanks." 

Connor nods and takes them back without a word, without looking at him. For some reason, Marcus can't take that. "I'm surprised that of all things possible, sunglasses survived the apocalypse. Strange thing to happen."

Connor shrugs, his eyes still somewhere else, and Marcus almost reaches out for him. Instead, he speaks again. "So if we go down, at least we go down looking cool."

Connor laughs.

***

Touching Blair is complicated. Warm skin under his fingertips, and he still feels that, still wants it. Heat spreading all over his body, something coiling together inside of him, yearning for release.

He kisses her and feels human, all his need still inside of him, real and solid. He's careful with her, she's rough with him, their first time a mess of mismatched limbs and confused touches. She comes with a groan, he bites a curse into her skin as his body shudders with hers.

Later, she smiles and a bruise blossoms on her neck.

***

Sometimes Marcus reaches out to touch Connor's chest.

He stops himself, always in time. Wonders why his hands yearn for this touch, worries that they still belong to Skynet, ready to tear Connor's heart out. Worries that he just wants to feel Connor's heartbeat under his fingers. 

That's Kate's place, not his, and he should trace the thudding beneath Blair's skin.

***

He wakes some mornings and can’t remember where he is, _what_ he is now. He wakes up and the world is normal, cities and highways and machines under human control. Then reality slams back into the moment, bringing the apocalypse with it, and he shudders against the knowledge that everything has changed.

He walks like a zombie these days, the broken world a shock all over again, and when he leaves the tunnels, he stares. Connor tells him that they all used to be like this in the beginning. "You get used to it," Connor says, and Marcus believes him. They all got used to it. That's the worst of it all.

It’s one of those days when Blair sits down with him and tells him her story of the end. Military machines going crazy, a war humanity could only lose. The first time she saw a Terminator, a thing with a mind of its own, and all it wanted was to kill her. Not ghosts in the machine but monsters, science fiction nightmares suddenly real.

She tells him the names of the Terminators, what she knows about them. The history of the Resistance, the few battles they already won, the many they lost. A chronology of pain and survival, and he listens to it without a word.

"I thought you should know," she says at the end.

"Yeah," he answers. "I should."

***

"Connor asked me about us fucking," Blair tells him days later, and Marcus chokes. "Apparently we were a little loud, everybody talked, Connor heard. Asked me if you were ... if things are the way they are supposed to be. Human."

She laughs at that, shaking her head. "You should have seen his face! Never thought I'd see Connor blush."

Marcus nods dumbly, his mind still blank. There's anger growing inside of him somewhere, he can feel it already, but for now it hasn't reached him yet. But when he sees Connor in one of the tunnels hours later, it has spread inside of Marcus and he glares at him.

"My sex life isn't any of your business," he tells Connor, and his voice is a hiss, a growling engine in the dark. Connor nods slowly and Marcus turns to leave.

"That bad?" Connor asks, and before Marcus even knows it, he shoves Connor, habits of lost buddy nights and stupid jokes coming back to bite his ass. He half-expects Connor to go for his gun. Instead, the leader of the Resistance starts to laugh, deep and honest, and Marcus can only grin in answer.

***

Sometimes Marcus thinks that Connor's mission plans are results of crack dreams. Then he remembers that drugs are one of the things that are gone and that Connor probably sleeps too bad to have anything other than nightmares.

It's not that some of his plans aren't brilliant, most of them are, but some are plain suicidal on paper, and Connor is always front and centre when it comes to those. This time it's no different, Connor gearing up for a mission with too many ways it could go wrong, and his men tense around him.

Kate comes to Marcus in the chaos of planning, looks at him with hard eyes. "He talks to you," she says, and Marcus hears more than that.

_He can't go._

He nods, a new weight settling on his shoulders, and leaves Kate behind to find her husband.

***

He goes through the plans again, speaks with Blair, reassures Kyle. Makes promises to Star he shouldn't make, but he's used to it by now, he said the very same words to her every time he headed out into chaos and death.

Connor is watching him.

His gaze is heavy. Angry. Marcus knows that Connor wants to do this on his own, but for once he listened to his men, to Kate. To Marcus, possibly. They had argued deep in the tunnels, Connor stubborn as usual, Marcus striking with the better arguments, and Connor gave in.

It's Marcus' mission now, the steel of his body a better match for it, the Resistance fighters staying at the base. His first solo mission, Connor's trust a shield as he arms himself and walks to Connor for his final instructions and farewell

"I'll return, John," he promises, the name rolling awkwardly from his tongue, and Connor cocks his head and nods.

When things go wrong days into the mission, Marcus isn't surprised. Just fights until he can't, losing consciousness like a dark blanket on his eyes. He wakes to bare walls and waits for Skynet to kill him, amusing himself with ideas of his batteries running out before Skynet remembers that they have a broken machine locked away.

Somewhere, outside of his prison, he imagines Connor raging over a broken oath.

***

Kyle saves him an eternity into his capture, big gun and puppy eyes, and the eternity Marcus spent between Skynet walls turns out to have only been a week. He runs with Kyle, fires at the Terminators following him, and laughs because he's free and as alive as he'll ever be.

Kyle tells him that Connor wanted to mount a rescue mission, that it had caused more fights between Connor and Barnes, and Kyle had run off during angry words and pleas for Connor to stay home. Kyle looks so proud then, a huge smile on his face, and John Connor's coat still wrapped around his body, his favourite thing ever since he got it. It's still too big for him.

They run until the Resistance comes for them, Blair bringing them home in a helicopter, and when they reach the base and with it John Connor, Kyle's smile vanishes. Connor is livid.

He screams at Kyle, calls him irresponsible and stupid, paces up and down like a caged tiger. Kyle stays silent, his eyes on the ground, and Marcus wants nothing more than to punch Connor. Instead, he stays as silent as Kyle and at his side, hoping his support is enough for the kid. Connor leaves them both standing then, Kyle with a broken look on his face and Marcus seething with anger.

Sometimes, Marcus thinks Connor isn't the leader of the Resistance. Sometimes, he's just an asshole.

***

"Everybody dies for me. Sometimes ... it's just too much," Connor tells him in the darkness of a tunnel.

Marcus ran into him by accident, found him amongst the rubble, and almost left right away. But Connor looked at him and Marcus sat down at his side, shoulders touching.

"They come and save me and die. They go on missions I thought up, I should go on, and they die. They want me safe. As if I'm better than them. I'm not."

Marcus doesn't reply, the silence mingling with the darkness, their breaths dancing between them.

"I don't want to become like Ashdown, hiding away while my men die."

"They died."

"And they almost took the whole Resistance with them."

***

Blair apologizes for not mounting a rescue herself. He almost laughs at that, tells her that she risked enough for him already. Almost tells her that he loves her, but stops before the words can escape.

He won't lie to her

***

Kate is with them sometimes when Connor puts him back together, the doctor to his mechanic. Marcus watches them both then, the way they create a little world of their own, and sometimes it feels as if he gets pulled into it, as if he's part of something new.

He shakes it off, pushes the feeling away. It's not his to own, not even now that he's used to being repaired by the man he was supposed to kill.

Kate smiles at him sometimes, a quick flash of white, and Marcus shows his teeth in a failed reply. She never seems to mind.

***

After Judgement Day, the sky is full of stars.

With the city lights gone, the darkness above them has become the home of heroes and legends again, and Marcus knows enough of astronomy to teach Kyle names and stories. Most nights, it's just the two of them, stretched out close to one of the tunnels. Tonight, Connor is with them.

Connor knows enough of the stars to chime in, telling stories of his own, and for a while it feels as if they were some kind of family. Two fathers, one son, and Marcus almost laughs out loud.

They brought alcohol from the still Connor isn't supposed to know about, and Kyle is so nervous about it, he hardly listens to them. Marcus is sure that Connor won't mind, that he knows about Savannah's little experiment and lets it happen. He pulls the bottle out of the bag, gets the cap off and takes a long gulp before pushing it over to Connor.

"Things are not going well with Blair," he tells them because he needs to tell somebody, and the night and the alcohol turn back time and it's just another drinking night with his friends. And Kyle is as much of a friend as he can have now, and Connor is something to him he can't quite explain - friend, leader, born enemy - and it feels strangely right to tell them.

Connor takes the bottle and drinks, handing it to Kyle after.

"Is it the sex?" Connor asks, and Marcus throws dirt at him. "Just asking."

"No, it's not the sex. It's ... I don't know."

Connor simply nods and Kyle coughs into the silence that follows, handing the alcohol back to Marcus.

"That stuff is disgusting."

***

Connor's men still listen to his speeches on the radios despite his presence in their own ranks. They waste batteries for his voice, the sound of it filling tunnels and barracks.

It's the first moment of hope it carries, the memory of finding out that people are alive in the wastelands, that somebody is ready to fight. It pulled them together in the first years after the end and holds them together now.

Connor's voice is proof that humanity still exists, and Marcus listens to it like everybody else.

***

Connor is bent over one of the hydrobots when Marcus enters his room, and Marcus stops and stares at him for seconds. Connor is made of lines so sharp, Marcus imagines it's easy to get cut when touching him, muscles and determination, responsibilities and madness. Sometimes, it's hard to look at Connor, to take it all in and not to wonder when Connor will break.

Other times, it's impossible to look away. 

"Anything you want?" Connor asks after Marcus lets the silence stretch too far. Connor doesn't look up, still focused on the machine nightmare on the table.

Nothing, Marcus could answer, and it would be both lie and truth. Instead, he shrugs before he answers. "Just wanted to ask if you'll come out with Kyle and me tonight again. Sky looks clear."

Connor nods and Marcus is almost out of the room when a second question leaves his mouth almost beyond his control.

"Is Kyle your brother?"

Behind him, Connor sputters.

"You spoke of your father the first time we met. Kyle Reese. I thought that Kyle might be named after him."

He looks at Connor and sees him wide-eyed. Afraid, Marcus thinks, an unusual look for Connor, and Marcus curses himself for his question.

"No, he isn't." Connor finally answers and Marcus frowns. "He's ..." Connor shakes his head then, turns away. "It's not important."

He won't tell Marcus anything, not now, and Marcus lets it go.

***

He tells Kyle about his past because Kyle is his friend and his responsibility; he tells Connor for reasons he doesn't understand himself. He just feels that Connor needs to know about it, needs to know about his brother, about his first death.

It's like telling them about Blair all over again, as if these two are his priests, his words confessions to keep him real.

Marcus starts easy, starts with the time when he already screwed up but his little brother was still alive.

"I used to be in the military," he tells them under the stars.

"That explains a lot," Kyle answers, and Marcus can see the dark shape that is Connor nod.

"Got thrown out. Misconduct."

"That explains even more," Kyle says. Connor laughs.

"I got my brother killed," Marcus continues, and Connor goes silent. "After the military, things got ... complicated. I did some illegal stuff to make money, he joined and then things went wrong. He died. Other people died. I ended up in jail."

Marcus takes a deep breath then, looks at the stars above them, imagines he's talking only to himself. "That's where I died. Death penalty. Gave my body to science. Science turned to Skynet." 

He breathes, deeply. Waits for their answer, for Kyle's disappointment. It doesn't come. Instead, the silence crackles like electricity.

It's Kyle who ends it. He speaks as if he's treading on quicksand, careful and testing the grounds. "There was a picture in the coat you gave me... A woman. I..."

"My mother," Connor says, his voice strangely changed.

"Oh."

"Keep it safe for me."

***

The thing with Blair doesn't end ugly. It just ends.

***

The stars are gone for days, the sky grey even at night. Smoke covering the horizon, ruins of cities burning, and they all carry the ashes of buildings and bodies in their clothes and hair.

Skynet rules the landscape they march through, and they walk on broken streets, the world around them a prison. Marcus remembers this city back when it was still alive, people and cars, noisy and crowded and human. Now the memory is grumbling beneath his combat boots.

The soldiers around him look tiny now, even Connor, all of them overshadowed by the dead city. It's only in such moments that Marcus can understand the depth of their hatred for the force that took their world apart. 

Connor, fragile and human, his face grey with the remnants of another time. Marcus stares at him, imagines his smile, and wonders if survival was their punishment. Wonders if Skynet is laughing at him, at Connor, at the Resistance.

He thinks that maybe Connor dreams of that sound.

***

It's morning when the world almost ends.

They are still in Skynet territory, will be for days, and the soldiers are tense. Nervous.

They're being watched.

Every sense and cell inside Marcus' body tells him to take cover, to hide. But like the rest of the men, he marches on. They don't know what is watching them, they don't know _where_ it is. Hiding and marching turns into the same damn thing. But if they keep on moving, they might leave their followers behind.

Marcus knows that none of the men truly believes that.

The men group around Connor, and Marcus sees him frown. They are his unwanted shield, the sacrifice he isn't willing to make.

When the shots come, the men scatter. Marcus follows Connor, loses him for a moment in the muted colours of the destroyed world. When he finds him again, Connor is on his knees, staring up at a T-800. Connor doesn't run, he doesn't shoot. Instead, he stays where he is, his eyes locked on the Terminator, and suddenly he lifts a hand from his gun and reaches out.

Life goes on in slow motion and almost comes to a standstill, the leader of humanity and the monster made of steel and skin too close to each other, and Marcus curses. He starts running, tackles the Terminator, everything inside of him vibrating at the impact. Life goes on then, fists and punches, the ghosts of pain running through his system.

The fight ends eventually. The last few months taught Marcus how to fight the Terminators, metal impostors of what he himself used to be. Human. His skin is ripped to shreds again, showing what lurks underneath, and his triumph over the Terminator pulls him back from the acceptance he finds with Connor and Kyle.

He's not like them. He never will be.

***

After their return, Marcus finds Connor in the tunnels again and he almost asks him about the Terminator. He doesn't. Instead, he sits down a few steps away from Connor and remains silent.

Time passes.

"Show me your arm," Connor demands, and the quiet shatters under the pressure of his voice.

Marcus moves before he decides to, Pavlov's Bell ringing in his head, and he closes the distance between them with the sound of steel scratching over concrete.

Connor's hands are on his arm then, competent fingers trailing over the gleam beneath the tatters of skin, and the sensation is almost familiar by now. Connor pushes and pokes, and Marcus has to look away because it doesn't hurt, because it's ugly, because it's what he is now and sometimes he still doubts himself.

Connor doesn't seem to share his fears.

"Looks like it will heal without problems, nothing missing but the skin."

Marcus nods at that, ready to pull his arm out of Connor's grasp, ready to ignore his need for repairs and Connor's skill for them until it's needed again. But Connor's hand is still on his arm, warm and strong.

"It's beautiful," Connor says, and Marcus stares at him. "I know that it shouldn't be, but it is."

Marcus frowns, his eyes on Connor's hand, on his human skin. Fragile and real and everything that was taken from him. It's beautiful and he doesn't understand Connor, can't understand him. There's nothing beautiful about the way his own artificial skin stretches over what he is now, nothing beautiful about the silver glint under the broken skin.

He watches as Connor touches him again, Connor's hold on him turning into a caress, his fingers stroking over the steel. He shouldn't feel it, the skeleton dead to every touch.

But for the first time, he does. 

A numb sensation, like pressure and something else, something that defies description. Electricity and power in bones of steel, a heartbeat that stutters, and Marcus shakes with the feeling, with the knowledge that this is him. Is still him.

"Connor," he says, his voice shaking, his throat dry. 

Connor pulls his hand away. It's not what Marcus wanted.

***

He wonders what Connor would be without this war, without Skynet.

If he would be anybody at all.

***

Amongst the rubble of the world, with their eyes tired, Connor and Kate kiss.

Marcus watches from a distance, watches as Connor seems like a real boy for a few minutes, a man without his mask. It's eerie, even now after he's spent some nights under the stars with Connor, even after Connor's hands turned the mess of steel his body has become back into a functioning machine again and again.

Even now, he forgets.

Connor smiles into the kiss and whispers something against Kate's mouth, making her laugh. She looks impossibly young then, impossibly alive, and Marcus wishes there were still cameras left. Because this, this needs to last.

***

"Blair and you..." Kyle begins, and Marcus looks at him. "Are you friends now?"

For a moment he's silent and thinks of Blair, of her skin under his hands, of her body. Alive and real, and he misses her in a whole new way. He misses her because she made him human.

She still does, his little group of friend and allies does, but touching her in that way had been different. Primal.

"I guess," he finally says. "We haven't talked about it."

When he looks up, Connor is watching him. He almost asks him if he knows how creepy that is. Instead, he looks away, looks at Kyle and gives him a smile.

"Post-apocalyptic dating is hard."

Kyle laughs. "Yeah, I know."

Connor leaves.

Minutes later, with the cheap excuse of being tired, Marcus follows. He tries to ignore the way Kyle frowns.

***

Connor waits for him in the dark, silent and unmoving. A statue, a legend in flesh instead of stone. For a moment, Marcus stares. Maybe, he thinks, they will build Connor a statue one day, after they won. Because they will win; nothing else is possible.

He shakes his head, chases the thoughts away, and looks at Connor again. Sees him tired and tense. Marcus tries to smile, ends up with a grimace instead, and takes another step.

When Connor walks away once more, he follows him. He hates Connor for it, hates himself more but doesn't stop moving. The darkness of the tunnels swallows them both. Marcus can see without light these days, knows that Connor should be blind in the shades of black that make up the unused tunnels. But Connor walks through the maze as if he could see, easy steps and fast strides. He knows this world. Marcus almost asks why. Instead, he keeps on walking after him.

When Connor finally stops again, they're far away from the rest of the world, the tunnels sounding different now, alive with the noise of tiny running feet, fur over stone. Leaning against the wall here, Connor looks calm, relaxed. Marcus thinks that Connor likes this world, a place where no one looks up to him, a place where he doesn't need to be the hero. Marcus understands. 

Maybe that's why he isn't surprised when Connor kisses him.

The kiss is careful, slow, and when it stops, Connor frowns at him. "You taste human."

Marcus bites down a laugh, bites his lips. "Disappointed?"

He half-expects Connor to nod. Instead, Connor shrugs, fingers tracing Marcus' lips. "Not really." Marcus knows him enough by now to realize that it's close to a lie. 

Then, Connor leans in and kisses him again. He wants this, Marcus realizes. Wants Marcus, human and machine, ally and enemy. Connor wants him and _John_ does, too.

He is suddenly John now, not Connor. A man in the darkness, warm and strong hands, whispered words against Marcus' skin. It's all new, different to what connected him with Blair, and it scares Marcus in a way Blair's body never did.

John wants him because he's human.

Connor wants him because he's a machine.

Marcus wishes he didn't know all that. And when Connor's hands trace his body, push against him hard because he can, because Marcus can take it, Marcus forgets.

***

Kate is waiting for Connor when they finally leave the tunnel, and Marcus almost stumbles when he sees her. At his side, Connor only smiles.

When he kisses Kate, Marcus turns away.

***

The day after, Marcus expects Connor to ignore him.

Instead, Connor smiles, a hand on Marcus' arm for a couple of seconds before he moves away. "You okay?" Connor asks, and Marcus nods. "Good. See you tonight?"

Another nod, and Connor smiles once more before he leaves.

Marcus stares after him.

When Kate enters the room minutes later, Marcus looks away. She curses and he freezes. A hand on her belly, a frown on her face, and she grins at him, tiredly. "God, I'm ready for this pregnancy to be over."

And Marcus realizes once more that machines can hate themselves.

***

Connor pulls him into an empty room hours later and Marcus wants to stop him, wants to stop the mess they started before it becomes so big it swallows them whole.

But he can't, not when Connor kisses him again, his hand on the arm with the still unhealed skin. Marcus can feel it, a hard touch that shudders through the steel of his body, and it's too good, too human, to let go.

He pushes and pulls against Connor until he has his arms around him, Connor fragile under his touch, human bones and blood and skin. 

It feels as if Marcus is possessing him. "John," he says, and feels Connor laugh.

"I know," Connor says, and Marcus thinks that Connor understands, that he lets Marcus have this moment. It might be more than he deserves because Connor isn't his, Connor is Kate's and he can't change that, doesn't want to change that.

But right now, he almost forgets.

Reality crashes back the moment the door opens. Marcus knows, when he hears it, that it will be Kate, that it can only be her because this is life after the apocalypse. He tries to step away from Connor, tries to force an apology out of his mouth. 

And fails.

Connor's hand holds him back, pulls him closer as he tries to leave. "It's okay," Connor mumbles against Marcus' skin. "It's okay."

He thinks that he shouldn't be surprised that Kate already knows.

***

He meets her under the night sky, a full moon and no stars.

"I'm sorry," he says, and she shrugs, human grace embodied.

"It's okay," she says, echoing her husband. "He's never been mine alone, he always belonged to the world." She sounds tired, resigned, and he tries to imagine her and Connor in a life untouched by Skynet and everything it brought.

Marcus wants to embrace her then, take away the pain she doesn't show. But he doesn't, he gives her the space she never gets in the tunnels. 

Connor is the leader but she's the doctor, the one everyone turns to with blood and pain and questions. The one Connor turns to. 

Marcus thinks the world owes her some minutes to herself. He thinks the world owes her so much more than that.

***

Connor doesn't touch him for a while, and Marcus knows that he waits it out, waits for Marcus to move. For weeks, Marcus can't.

But when Kate nods at him in the tunnels, he can.

***

John always moves into the caress of Marcus' robot hand first. The hand that never heals these days, not like the rest of his body. Marcus keeps it this way, scratching and ripping, reminding himself what he is, what he could become. Skin torn off only to re-grow, a circle Marcus keeps on running, blood and skin under his nails.

He needs to remember because he has more to lose now.

He has something like a home, a room of his own, a place that he knows. He has friends, Kyle and Blair and Star. He has a lover who means everything to the world, a lover he can't betray because it would mean more than angry words and bitter silence.

It would mean the end.

And there's Kate, a belly full with the future, and he knows he has to protect her as much as he protects John. The world lies on his shoulders now, too, another Atlas with a sky to carry.

Sometimes, it's lighter than he thought it would be.

***

Days after Kate gives birth, he walks into Connor's room to find her alone in there. He stops.

She smiles.

"Hi," he says, carefully. "Didn't want to bother you."

She sits up, slowly, and he can see how exhausted she still is. He knows that Connor worries. He worries, too.

"Come here," Kate says, patting the bed, and he sits down beside her, feels the warmth of her body. "I make you nervous, don't I?"

He decides for honesty and nods because she does. She's Connor's wife, after all. And well, she was pregnant not too long ago. Breakable, the next generation wrapped up inside of her. Strong, too, keeping her head when everything around her went to pieces. Scary in a way he can't really define. 

She smiles at his answer and reaches out for him, her hand on his. It's warm and rough, fit for survival and hard work. "Do you think I'm pretty?"

He sputters at her question, stares at her.

"John always tells me I'm beautiful. But well, he is my husband." A smirk follows and she takes her hand from his, lets it fall on his leg instead.

"He's right," Marcus mumbles, staring at the way her fingers spread over his pants, heat and strength and a promise he's not quite sure she's making.

"I can share, you know that already," she says finally. "But John, John can share, too."

***

"Stay," Kate says hours later, and Connor nods.

Marcus does.

***

Kissing Kate isn't easy at first. They don't fit together, there's nothing of the ease he has with Connor between them. He's too careful and she hates it, pushing him too hard, their kiss a battle for something he isn't ready to give in the beginning.

He's always watching her, worried that he'll break her. She's human and he's not, but she's strong in ways he's only learning now. Ways he needs to see, so he keeps his eyes open all the time.

She tells him it's creepy once, the space between them filled with Connor's absence. He shrugs and doesn't apologize, doesn't explain. But he reaches for her anyway, wraps his arms around her just to find out how it feels.

He thinks one day he'll like it.

It gets easier with time. He learns what she can take; she lets him be careful. He thinks there might be a rhythm between them now, something tangible. 

When she kisses him now, he closes his eyes.

***

Over a year after he came back from the dead, he looks at John and suddenly sees Kyle like a blueprint all over him. He sees and stares, questions spilling out of him like oil from a leaking machine.

Connor goes rigid. And walks away.

Hours later, Connor tells him the truth in the darkness of his room, his voice strangely bland and empty, like steel over emotions, like the Terminators he fights. For the longest time, Marcus doesn’t believe him. It’s too much, even after everything he has seen, even after he died and came back as something different.

There’s one thing that gets through the haze of impossibilities quite easily though.

Connor is going to kill Kyle.

***

He can’t look at John for days, can’t talk to him. Walks away, walks into the deserts and ruins around him.

He only returns because Kyle followed him and Kyle can’t survive out there, not for long anyway. Something would find him soon enough.

Kate is waiting for them.

She smiles at Marcus, careful, questioning, and she pulls him along into a tunnel. She stumbles in the darkness but walks on anyway, and he walks after her.

He did this with Connor so many times.

She doesn’t make excuses for Connor, doesn’t explain more than he already did. But she lets him rage, lets him question, and she has answers for all the ideas he has, all the ways he comes up with to save Kyle.

Connor and Kate went through all of them, he realizes. And they found no way out.

***

The first time after he found out about Kyle is made of hard touches and angry sound, Connor clinging to him as if Marcus could save him from what’s to come.

But he can’t, nobody can, and Marcus forgives Connor because he has to, holds him together with his hands as Connor comes.

"I'm sorry," Connor whispers into his body, warm breath against Marcus' skin. 

He nods, puts a palm against Connor's chest to feel his heartbeat. "I know."

He curls around Connor later, mirroring Kate on the other side, one hand on her hip. Between them, Connor sleeps.

***

Kyle finds out about them after seven days, Blair after ten.

She smiles and shrugs it off, pretending to be happy for them, but Marcus knows it's not that easy. He doesn't comment, lets Blair keep her mask. He understands her enough to know that she's grateful for that.

Kyle can't deal with it for days, looking away when he sees him with Connor, going crimson sometimes. It would be funny if Connor wasn't Kyle's son, it would be funny if Kyle wouldn't have to die. But that future is already written, so Marcus pulls Kyle out of his awkwardness, drags him and Connor under the stars again.

Their time is always running out, and he wants Connor to have this. So he knows his father, so he will grieve for him later. Both of them deserve that much.

***

Marcus dreams of a second betrayal some nights, of another programming hidden away beneath his skin, and he wakes up screaming. John calms him with warm hands, and Kate grumbles into the darkness.

"Stupid robot with nightmares," she says, and reaches out for him anyway.

He tries to laugh.

Marcus can't sleep after, wishing for an off-switch somewhere on his body, moving too much in a bed that's too small for two people and a machine.

"Count sheep. Electric ones if necessary," Kate whispers, her fingertips suddenly on his belly, a tap-dance of light touches.

This time, he laughs.

***

"Don't tell me when you do it," Marcus says, looking at Kyle. John nods.

***

It's Kate who tells him that a T-800 will kill John. The same model that will kill Kyle and that will save John twice. The model that will save her. It has yet to happen and happened already, time moving around them in a crazy dance, and he still doesn't understand. He knows that none of them do.

"It's enough to drive you insane," John once said. "I blame my bad traits on it." Kate laughed then, a quick slap to Connor's head, and Marcus decided to give up on understanding the meaning of it all. It's time, it isn't fate, and he tells himself that it's not a God to believe in.

She won't let it happen, Kate says, and means John's death. She won't. A promise, an oath, and he nods. He remembers the Terminator John reached out for weeks ago, the strange quiet of that moment. Connor hadn't been scared back then, and Marcus already knows that this thing has enough sway over Connor to kill him.

But Kate won't let it happen and he won't let it happen either, fate be damned. John will just have to live with that. 

And live, he will.


End file.
